CFSB Board Meeting Minutes
February 25, 2025
Attendees: Pierre Charest, Ed Anderson, Harry Liquornik, John Hoadley, Jeff Hepp, Ray Kennedy, Mike Nelson, Gary Burke, Bernard Friedman, Shane Robinson, Bella Sullivan (NRDC), Aszha (SB Environmental Defense Center), Sandy Alyesworth (NRDC), Jason Woods, Chris Voss, Matt Diamond, Kim Selkoe, Ben Hyman, Jeff Maassen, Mary Nishimoto (JOFLO), Garrett Rose, Michael Harrington, Tony Luna
Notes: Ava Schulenberg
Agenda:
*Housekeeping, time limits, 3 minute maximum policy on individual comments
Ocean Collective Update - 15 min
Forming a Ocean Collective board
Uplift funding
Next steps storage yard architectural design
Carp Reef MPA, Sandy Aylesworth with NRDC - 20 min
AOA - 10 min
January Blue Economy Summit Recap - 5 min
Thank you to all who attended; All feedback is welcome
Kelp Restoration Pilot Program Update - 5 min
Sea Grant Projects - 5 min Look at Teresa’s email
Fish Walk Update
Thanks to Chris, Harry, and Hepp family for assistance with this project
Sea Grant Training Program planning
Boat Safety Class, Chumash interest
Recruiting Mentors for Apprenticeship program
Fish and Game Commission Meeting Recap - 5 min
February FGC Meeting Minutes
Zavaletta is the new FGC President
March MRC coming up on 3/13
Ava will be there in person; Travel costs split between CFSB and CLTFA
$200/day travel stipend for any CFSB member who wants to attend meetings
Halibut Trawl Bycatch meeting in Sausalito in April - 5 min
In-person workshop: April 30 (09:00 am - 03:00 pm), Bay Model Visitor Center, 2100 Bridgeway, Sausalito, CA 94965
We've been notified that space is limited, so please RSVP by March 30th with your planned attendance to [email protected] and include: Your name and the number of any additional guests that will be attending, and a description of your relationship to California halibut and/or California marine resources. You can visit the Department’s California Halibut Scaled Management Process webpage for more information and subscribe to receive email updates from them directly
Salmon Update - 5 min
Financials - 10 min
Update on bookkeeping
Ava Raise $30 to $35/hr
Other - 10 min
CINMS Advisory Board Elections
John Hoadley and Mike Nelson (alternate)
2025 Cable Grant CFSB Application (general)
CFSB Sat Market Application
PAY YOUR DUES PLEASE if you haven’t already 🙂
Kim starts the meeting at 4:03PM upstairs in the harbor classroom.
Agenda:
*Housekeeping, time limits, 3 minute maximum policy on individual comments
Ocean Collective Update - 15 min
Forming a Ocean Collective board
Uplift funding
Next steps storage yard architectural design
Kim gives an update that SBCC was awarded a $200k planning grant from the CA Jobs First initiative called Uplift to move the Ocean Collective project forward
CFSB will get some of these funds - staff support for moving this project forward and the architect budget of $28k for partial coverage of the site design and permitting process of the storage yard at SBCC.
Space on Loma Alta next to MDT building and bridge; SBCC President said she is supportive of a phased approach to site development. Build the boatyard/baseline infrastructure first to lease to CFSB, and then they will design and fund additional site development of trainings/classroom space and wet lab space in phase 2
We still need to go to the board of their trustees and need to continue to have their blessing, but we do have an MOU already
$28K for architecture is less than the amount that it will take to get to the shovel ready state, so we are also going to pursue Coastal Conservancy funding to get the rest of it (they funded our current property at the boat yard), and asked for some coverage in our Cable grant.
Kim brings up the concept of forming a new board because the Collective is moving in a direction of becoming its own entity so Kim is trying to figure out how to best shape this project where fishermen are involved but it’s not too burdensome; Should the Collective be situated as a new and separate 501c3?
Bernard says forming another board is too premature to go at that alone in this moment; There’s not enough bandwidth unless SBCC promotes a board or something like that but at this time that seems like too much
Chris says SBCC MDT has their own board already; Ted Roche of Aqueous, Sean’s dad, is on it. (Pierre and Bernard graduated from that program)
We don’t know if there’s a precedent of SBCC being on the board of a separate non-profit organization like the Ocean Collective.
Shane asks about cold storage if Get Hooked will be using it? Kim says no, that’s not the plan. Many fishermen and processors have expressed interest in cold storage and we will come up with a framework of how to sublet cold storage lockers or pallet space for CFSB members.
Ed says port of LA is doing something like this across the San Pedro side, they’re calling it an incubator space and they’re partnering with one of their city colleges
He also says Hueneme and Oxnard College and CSUCI are doing something similar as well so might be worth looking into
Kim asks how he knows all of this; Ed says they’re not going to be in there spot in Goleta much longer and he’s trying to procure employees and it’s really hard to find, so he researches this type of thing regularly
Ray says he is concerned about losing control and what are our voting rights in that collective board?
Kim says to keep the Ocean Collective as a sub-committee of CFSB as long as possible? He says yes, exactly.
Harry says if and when the yard gets going that’s the time to have that conversation of a separate entity and Chris agrees and says that makes sense
So for now, we’ll try to form a broad advisory board that reports to CFSB and includes partner organization reps, and there may be a day where SBCC programs are up and running and they can handle it and we’re just a leaseholder and we simplify things at that point.
Please continue to share thoughts and feedback about this situation. We can finalize our decision at the next board meeting and talk about the advisory board formation.
Jeff Maassen asks about the City’s say in this project? Kim says they are very supportive and want to help us make this happen by means of expediting permitting processes, etc.
City Council members are meeting with us in the next couple weeks which shows their interest and support in this project just by dedicating their time thus far
To be clear, we don’t want to let go of the Wright Property, we would still be managing that in tandem with this new project, and we will still look out for an opportunity to get more space or ownership at the Wright Property in the future.
Carp Reef MPA, Sandy Aylesworth with NRDC - 25 min
Sandy, Aszha, and Bella introduce themselves
Sandy has a background in illegal fishing and works for NRDC, but she was a mariner for 10 years in Maine and out here at Catalina Island, and at Antarctica
Aszha says she is Santa Barbara-based and works for the Environmental Defense Fund
Bella has a fishing background and is from AK
Sandy gives some high level information about the adaptive management process with MPAs and how the Mishopshno petition (Carp Reef) was formulated with NRDC in partnership with the Santa Ynez Chumash Band of Indians
Sandy is hoping to get input on how they could make amendments to the boundaries to get fishing community support for their petition.
Harry says he has been a strong proponent of reserves since the 90s when the black ab fishery closed (could have proven it wasn’t fishing it was die off); What’s NRDC’s position as far as long term strategy with reserve management? We spent 2 years developing all that exists now, there were a lot of trade offs, so do you want to have good regional management with working groups to make constructive changes? What we’ve been handed is not that at all, it’s pure chaos, so to come in here and say “What do you think of Carp Reef,” is frustrating. Harry suggests that he is willing to have a dialogue about new trades- if you take Carp can you give us back Naples.
At the moment Carp Reef is a non-starter
Sandy says NRDC is not trying to take 30% of fishing grounds away
Kim asks about the environmental and ecological goals of this petition?
Sandy says creating a new reserve to fill a gap in the network that will enhance the larval connectivity across reserves is a reason
Kim pushes back on this and says there’s no lack of larval connectivity in the Channel given the larval phases of fishery species and current speeds and mixing, so please show us evidence that there is an actual need.
Bella also says preserving the rocky reef bottom promotes kelp growth
Jeff Maassen brings up urchin barren problem inside reserves
Harry says look at the North Coast because Abalone and Kelp just got closed, the reserves didn’t do anything, he doesn’t want to argue whether they work or not, this is where we’re stuck because there’s no process
Sandy says that the process sucks and has been extremely disorganized, no one disagrees on that
Chris says CDFW has been struggling from day 1 with how to execute on this process since it was introduced at the decadal review meeting in Monterey a couple years ago; They are baffled with how to figure this out and that shows in the MRC meetings
Chris brings up how at the last MRC in November 2024 only 1 of the 5 low hanging fruit petitions that were discussed was approved to move forward, indicating that big proposals like this one don’t have much chance.
Chris reminds Sandy to be sensitive about this whole thing because of all the work we have to do to engage on all the proposals and all the other threats to fishing livelihoods and access.
Shane brings up the impact on Carp residents and all the kids and locals that no longer will have access; all that effort will get squeezed into small areas. He says it’s like putting cows in a pasture for 5 years. Do you think there will be any bottom left? You have to rotate things
Bella says they have been trying to make as much stakeholder engagement happen as possible
Bella asks where on the reef we are fishing?
Harry says if they feel there’s connectivity issue, then we have way too much hard bottom taken out to the west of us so either Isla Vista or Naples gets reopened because those 2 areas alone easily accounted for 30% of our hard bottom out of this harbor
Bernard says call it income because what we’re dealing with here is a major economic impact. Kim adds that it's not just about money, it's about domestic vs imported seafood - the carbon footprint and the environmental impacts globally will go up when you take local seafood away.
Gary says he takes offense at the SBCAN meeting when Sandy said something about commercial industrialization because this isn’t the Indian Ocean this isn’t the same ocean as other oceans that are on that train
Garrett seconds that
Jeff Maassen says NGOs have been disingenuous with their “efforts with commercial fishermen” and need to put their money where their mouths are with garnering more science, etc.
Ben says imported seafood increases our carbon footprint because the same amount of seafood will be eaten it just will be brought in from somewhere else so next time you’re eating a piece of fish please remember that there’s a lot more connected to it
Hoadley agrees and says when you take away the local resources, everything falls apart, other areas become more heavily fished, the economics fall apart, families are impacted
John Hoadley says in regards to the larval studies, why hasn’t anyone taken the time to do studies before coming to the table; There’s a gentleman named Jason Johns who says the technology has become much more readily available and he did a study in Micronesia that included scientific methods that could be applied to this situation; He says they’re creating a problem that doesn’t exist and doing so without any science to back it up on a global or local scale
Kim follows up on the larval issue - you can’t ignore the island reserves that have strong connectivity to the mainland. The oil spill migration shows that too. Sandy says she will show her the studies
Harry says if the distance is a valid argument but with that said then we have too much to the west of us; Both Naples and IV we took out the entire reef complex, are more closures smaller size better maybe spaced out? When we went through Channel Islands we went through every species and we didn’t spend enough time looking at those dynamic of those existing reefs
Gary asks about the Pt Mugu closure which Sandy doesn’t know about and Bella says they can follow up with more information on that
Ben says he has a 9 year old at home and there’s got to be something more concrete in terms of justification for taking grounds away that will impact his son’s life and future
Jason agrees and says he was part of the island and coastal closure process and it was clear to him that gear compaction was the initial worry; Gear compaction wasn’t the issue, at one time we had 1300 urchin divers, we have 80 now.
Jason says the biggest impact of the MPAs has been suicide, divorce, substance abuse - Sandy asks if MPAs contribute to that? Jason says yes
It’s like taking away someone’s college degree because you spend your life learning these areas and then it’s taken away
Chris says we are grateful for them coming here and says that they need to radically revise their proposal or collaborate with us on other things that we align on, like fighting finfish aquaculture.
Aszha says she is working on orienting herself with aquaculture and she wants to talk more about it because EDC doesn’t support that
The consensus of the room is that before amendments can be discussed, the science has to be put forth; They need to consider withdrawing based on what they learned today. Harry requests that our previous Letter of Opposition against the entire MPA Petition process be included in these minutes.
AOA - 5 min
Chris says our letter was part of a bunch of other letters that were submitted by other organizations up and down the coast like the Alliance, etc.
Chris says it will be good to pull in EDC to get their support against aquaculture
Ben asks if we know the Ventura Port District’s stance? Chris says he doesn’t know but Jason says they were in favor of the shellfish because they want the business
Bernard says there’s a 100 acre lease application from David Wyllett next to his farm that’s on the agenda for the March MRC meeting in a couple weeks and there’s concern about the precedent that this sets because this guy has no experience and if nothing is said he may get the lease
Gary says this is a water grab
Harry asks if they at least gave a buffer?
Bernard says no
Kim asks if Bernard can submit an identical application? He says yes and that we all in this room could hypothetically submit identical applications no problem just have to pay $500 and it would clog up the system for the next 10 years
It’s $500 application to start the process, that’s the only barrier and now this guy is attempting to get 100 acres
Chris says we have another example of an abusive process that doesn’t consider
Bernard says yes this is just going to be a waste of time
Kim says why does he have trouble with his expansion efforts but this guy can just come in and do this?
Jeff asks if he would have a problem if it was off Rincon?
Bernard says not as much, the biggest issue he has is yes the proximity but also the fact that someone with zero experience can potentially do this
January Blue Economy Summit Recap - 5 min
Thank you to all who attended; All feedback is welcome
We’re grateful to the CEC for hosting the event and we still have about $16K in leftover funds to allocate towards other advocacy efforts
Gary said it was nice but there should have been more focus on fisheries instead of projects
Kim says it was supposed to be focused on innovation that helps the fishing community
Harry says he wouldn’t want to go to an event or workshop with just fishermen and just talking about fishing
Harry and Chris feel it went well
Bernard says if it gets people talking and thinking that’s the best outcome we can ask for
Kim says right and you don’t get work done with forums like that but it’s great exposure and awareness
Also, we made a good connection with the California Nanosystems Institute. They want to partner on the Ocean Collective and have programming to support entrepreneurship and engineering design that we can all take advantage of, especially if you are a UCSB alum. Please reach out to Kim if you are interested in this.
Kim, Chris, and Mike met with Wiltshire at the conference. A lot of other ports are doing apprenticeship programs and building public support for fisheries in their communities. Wiltshire was very engaged and positive about working to support us.
Kelp Restoration Pilot Program Update - 5 min
Harry says we should talk to Nora about how much poundage is coming out of an acre?
Kim says it can be anywhere from 4K-10k Lbs an acre so budgeting about 8000 lbs roughly. We have extra budget in case we have more than anticipated.
Harry says Grant on the North Coast gave him some numbers that he can share - TNC’s report says that 3200 lbs were cleared at Noyo North and 2200 lbs were cleared in Albion to get to the threshold of 2 urchin/m2 that allows kelp growth.
Kim says in Palos Verdes barrens range from 12-100 purple urchins/sqm with an average of 30 urchins/sqm across the entire PV Peninsula.
Harry asks if we can do some smashing and add that to the contract?
Kim says no we have to stick to the plan but maybe in future projects because this is a pilot
Shane asks about site assessment?
Kim says yes we’ve narrowed it down to a few areas at Tyler Bight and we are waiting for the UCSB team to go out and evaluate the urchin densities and defensibility of them to pick the best acre.
Sea Grant Projects - 5 min
Fish Walk Update
Thanks to Chris, Harry, and Hepp family for assistance with this project
Chris says a lot of people have contributed to these drafts
Ava will send out drafts to all CFSB members when Sea Grant sends them back to us based on recent feedback
Their deadline for installation is April 5th (same day as the dive monument reveal
Sea Grant Training Program planning
Boat Safety Class, Chumash interest
3 day free safety course, let us know if you/your deckhands are interested in participating
We met with Spenser Jaimes who is a tribal leader of a non-federally recognized tribe locally and he is very interested in participating and wants to get into commercial fishing (and so do his peers); We would like to continue working with him and are grateful for his interest in partnering with us
Recruiting Mentors for Apprenticeship program
Let us know if you are interested in participating; This program exists in San Diego and would be a great opportunity to build the funnel
Kim says that Carrie Culver told us that every time there’s a republican administration the Sea Grant program gets cut but then a petition is circulated to reinstate it, and so far it's always gotten reinstated with an even larger budget than before. So the fact that it’s proposed to be cut right now it’s not dire but we need to participate in the petition.
Fish and Game Commission Meeting Recap - 5 min
February FGC Meeting Minutes
Zavaletta is the new FGC President
Murray and Sklar remain on the MRC, we were hoping for Zavaletta
March MRC coming up on 3/13
Ava will be there in person; Travel costs split between CFSB and CLTFA
$200/day travel stipend for any CFSB member who wants to attend meetings
Harry asks how far back we can go on that
Kim says you can’t, you have to get approval in advance and show receipts.
Halibut Trawl Bycatch meeting in Sausalito in April - 5 min
In-person workshop: April 30 (09:00 am - 03:00 pm), Bay Model Visitor Center, 2100 Bridgeway, Sausalito, CA 94965
We've been notified that space is limited, so please RSVP by March 30th with your planned attendance to [email protected] and include: Your name and the number of any additional guests that will be attending, and a description of your relationship to California halibut and/or California marine resources. You can visit the Department’s California Halibut Scaled Management Process webpage for more information and subscribe to receive email updates from them directly
Gary says Travis Tanaka did studies of Halibut bycatch, including Morgan. and presented it and it came out like they were catching nothing so he’s shocked that they’re doing this after the fact
Chris says he thinks they’re just going through the motions
Harry says don’t forget to remember the limited space they are able to fish in as it is
Chris says they’re confident that they're doing a good thing and not a bad thing so we will see how this plays out; They’ve backed off of their efforts to eliminate the Set Gillnet fishery altogether, Kim says that is in part a lot due to Chris Free’s paper; They can’t just do smoke in mirrors to justify their actions. Chris Free’s paper seems to also have helped Oceana back off as well.
Jeff Hepp says the studies came out super clean
Most of this meeting is about Dungeness Crab and Sturgeon bycatch on the Northern parts of the state
Salmon Update, Ben Hyman - 5 min
Tomorrow we have CDFW informative meeting about the ocean abundance forecast for CA King Salmon; They project 180k mix of juvenile, hatchery return fish, wild fish; We were drastically below 180k, we hit 100k and same for our winter Chinook run only about 2000 fish back
We most likely will not have a season at all and they might try to do something like 20 fish a week a few times a summer; All of us should collaboratively have a plan to oppose any sort of season as this comes in the wake of 2 closed seasons so they can’t blame us for “over harvesting” any more, there’s no recourse other than blaming it on themselves and the mismanagement of river system
He thinks the hatchery system has failed
He will have talking points for the 3 alternatives that he can share with anyone who reads these minutes and he says the April meeting will be in San Jose where fishermen will have the opportunity to engage, more details to come soon on that
2024 season was deemed a disaster by NOAA
Ben says we we need a letter to support
Garrett says he wants Ben to write a letter and he will second the motion because a 20 fish season won’t do anything for us it will just turn us into Washington
Financials - 10 min
Update on bookkeeping
Kim says her and Michael have finally made time to attack the books
He asked that we bring in another bookkeeper named Kirsten McFarland so her and Kim have a meeting tomorrow to go through some books and basically the more grants we’ve gotten the more complicated our books get
We can’t go over our financials, we have to close our books on 2024 and can’t make a budget on 2025 because we need to have finalized 2024 financials
Kim brings up general funds and asks how do we want to reallocate things if at all because in July the board voted to all $15K to cover staff costs when we had run out of grant funds; For now we will replenish the general fund and address this again later if needed
Ava Raise $30 to $35/hr
Ava asks CFSB for a raise based on her efforts; Last raise was in 2023
Ava received a raise from CLTFA, she now gets paid $40/hr for them
Harry makes a motion to give the raise to $35, Chris seconds, unanimous approval (5-0-0 vote stands)
Kim says it’s easier to get funding for projects versus Ava’s advocacy work and we should think about better ways to fund that going forward
Other - 10 min
CINMS Advisory Board Elections
John Hoadley and Mike Nelson (alternate)
Mike says his current term on his commercial fishing seat is up and his and John’s plan is to flip so that John is now the official commercial fishing representative and Mike is the alternate (right now John is the alternate)
John and Mike have submitted their applications but encourage anyone to reach out to them if they have any interest in engaging
2025 Cable Grant CFSB Application (general)
CFSB Sat Market Application
We put in 1 cable grant for CFSB and 1 for the Sat Market
Gary and Jeff say second week of March they will meet to allocate awards
Gary says there’s way more people after money this year than ever and it’s going to be a bit tighter
Gary suggests reaching out to Morro Bay because they have a million dollars
Ava reached out numerous times to Chris Kubiak and they did not reach out
Kim says that’s a shame because we do so much statewide advocacy. Chris adds that they are sitting on a huge savings account and not spending their mitigation money much.
Terry Willmarth
Service is on Tuesday, March 18th at 9AM
Gary says he was a great advocate; Everyone will miss him
On this topic, because Terry passed while fishing alone, Jason presents this safety device that will send a signal if you are fishing by yourself and you fall overboard
Mary says this is an item that can be reimbursed by filling out and submitting the Fisheries Enhancement Fund application
PAY YOUR DUES PLEASE if you haven’t already 🙂
Chris ends the meeting at 6:04PM upstairs in the harbor classroom.